


Body Language

by Rosencrantz



Category: The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: Backstory, Deal with a Devil, Gen, Ursula is a problem solver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/pseuds/Rosencrantz
Summary: Ursula's arrival and subsequent dealings with King Triton as seen through the unfortunate fate of a man who just wanted to kidnap mermaids.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15
Collections: 2019 Disney Animated Movie Exchange (DAM Exchange)





	Body Language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JehanetteProuvaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanetteProuvaire/gifts).

> I haven't seen the sequel movies so I don't any backstory beyond the fact that King Triton was a redhead and he had a wife (so he didn't spawn those daughters himself). This is all my own take.
> 
> Thank you to Violet for the beta!

Are mermaids real?

Of course not. That was just a reaction to manatees and sea cows!* A long time at sea and if a sailor saw one of those magnificent creatures, of course he would believe it was a beautiful human/fish hybrid. 

Especially in these warm tropical waters, the manatee’s native waters.

That was why they called Professor Peffleswatch a lunatic. Once a naturalist of great renown, he was now on this fool's quest to find mermaids. Pefflesnatch! Discoverer of the Paradise Falls Snipe! Pefflesnatch! Famous for his monograph on the family habits of the Central American Gorilla! Pefflesnatch! The first to document the singing Scarlet West Indies Crab!

And that's where it had all gone wrong, really. 

He claimed that his prize specimen, a Scarlet West Indies Crab with a powerful 'voice', had been stolen from him by a mermaid. Oh, he got his recordings, but he'd intended the crab to be stuffed and placed on display in his personal museum.

"I had the little fellow by the window, to catch the best light to illustrate him for a diagram, when a great giant man with a fishtail somehow flung himself up into the windowframe, grabbed the cage, and crawled back out to shore before I could even react!" 

And that was why he was of _once_ great renown.

Now he was a broken man on a Caribbean pier, setting up traps to catch his mermaids and prove to them all that he, Peffleswatch, was no madman. 

He knew he was getting close. His traps were coming back broken. Something out there was resisting him. Something intelligent. Something strong.

He just had to make his traps unbreakable.

***

"This can't go on," said King Triton. He'd come here, a makeshift hovel for a sea monster, as a second to last resort. His true last resort would be stripping the scales from that human terrorizing his people. But that would just prove that his people were there to find, and more humans would come looking.

So here he was, talking to the one mercreature who could fix any problem, or so she said. She was new to these waters, come from somewhere deep and dark, and her reputation as a fixer was the talk of the merfolk. As were her steep prices. It was commonly said that Triton would soon drive her out, to protect them from her cruelties and her temptations.

"Your highness," said the sea witch, one of her eight tentacles trailing up Triton's chest and tangling in his thick red beard, "I can't imagine what you think I can do about it."

"Make this human _go away_," said Triton. "For good. It's only a matter of time before my guards can't get to one of his victims in time." He forced himself not to pull away from Ursula's tentacle. Hopefully it wouldn't leave sucker marks he'd have to explain to the queen later.

"I don't work for free, you know," said Ursula. She smiled widely, looking at Triton's trident. Triton pulled it back. Ursula frowned.

"I will pay what is _reasonable_," said Triton.

"Hm. I'll need time to think," said Ursula, clearly put out that the trident wasn't on the menu.

"We don't have time!" said Triton. "Each day he gets closer to revealing us! He steals our citizens!"

"Then maybe you shouldn't have been so eager to retain your retainer, hm?" said Ursula, tentacle now creeping up to touch Triton's cheek. "That wasn't very wise of you. A king _does_ have to learn to fight those impulses, you know." 

She gave a deep-throated chuckle.

"I gave Sebastian the loyalty what was owed," said Triton stiffly. "State your price. Clearly, you know what you want."

"I want my own land," said Ursula. "I rid you of this human, and you give me my own territory where I'll be unmolested by your people." 

Triton hesitated. If the sea witch was as dangerous as she seemed, he was giving her free rein. But being hunted by humans… there was no escape from that.

"Very well," he said.

"Cheers, darling," said Ursula. "I look forward to my new home. He'll be gone before the moon is full."

***

Professor Peffleswatch had moved on from shore-side traps soon enough. Now he took his boat out to sea to set deep water traps, to intrigue and capture passing merpeople. His shiny new diving suit waited back at his base of operations, ready for him to don to see their kingdom in person once he'd captured a guide.

His latest traps had been broken with extreme prejudice. 

He smiled as he looked at the breaks.

No wild animal would have done such a systematic job. Intelligence had been behind this destruction.

"My little friends,” he said quietly, a wide smirk on his face, “you don't realize how much information you give me with every little action.”

He pulled his boat up to the pier and tied up. He'd set new traps, harder traps, and felt ready for tomorrow's data and the simple joy of collecting what he'd learned today.

He was so preoccupied with describing the ripped-up joints of the cage, the knife marks on the netting, that he almost did not see the beautiful woman lounging beside his door.

He paused.

This was just as rare as the Paradise Falls Snipe, for him.

"Hello? Are you lost?" he asked. She was beautiful, somehow slim and curvy all at once, with long brown hair and improbably beautiful purple eyes.

She smiled, a half-smile that felt aimed right at his heart, and she said: "I am indeed. I was hoping for shelter for the night."

And she leaned in, very close.

He swallowed. He adjusted his collar.

"I… could be so inclined to share my shelter, yes," he stammered out.

"My name's Vanessa," the woman with the purple eyes said.

"Professor Percival Pendleton Peffleswatch," said Peffleswatch.

"How lovely," she replied.

And so she entered his cabin.

***

'Vanessa' didn't bother saying anything else about herself. Peffleswatch didn't ask. What he did tell her was everything she'd always wondered about humans, though she doubted he’d meant to.

He couldn't keep his eyes off her. He couldn't stop talking about his many discoveries.

Right now he was going on about a type of elephant that could, under some circumstances, fly in its infanthood. Ursula listened with half her mind on him, the other half of her focus on casually paging through his trap designs.They were clever enough. The sort of thing a mermaid couldn't resist investigating. She knew how curious mermaids were. It was her favourite thing about them, really. It made them so easy to manipulate.

She smiled, and Peffleswatch puffed up at the sight, and then she saw his sketches of King Triton. He looked ridiculous, o mighty king, crawling on land and breaking into a human's home just to rescue some foolish crab.

He was sentimental, the king was. Ursula liked that _very_ much. That would be useful to her. 

She turned from Peffleswatch's sketches and went to the metal and tarp suit in the corner of the cabin, placing a hand on its chest. She met Peffleswatch's eyes. She moved her hand slowly down the suit front.

Peffleswatch shivered.

"What's this, darling?" she asked.

"That's…" Peffleswatch's eyes were on Ursula as she leaned her body flush against the suit, pretending to 'examine' it. He swallowed. "That's a diving suit, my dear. Once I've caught one of these mermaids, I will use it to examine their undersea world. I need them to show me where it is first. It's all very systematic."

"Oh I see," said Ursula, smiling enticingly. "And how many of these suits exist?"

"Well, you have to be, well, in the know, to get them," said Peffleswatch. Ursula arched her back, chest pressing against the suit. "Or quite rich. They're not really in use around… around here…" He trailed off.

"So this is the only one I'm ever going to see?" said Ursula.

"Well, I'm a very important man!" said Peffleswatch. "Very important! And no one would step on my area of research, these mermaids!" 

Ursula considered asking him why he suddenly looked like he was hiding something, before deciding it was meaningless.

"All this. And you don't share?" she asked.

"Right now this is all exclusive to me, young lady. I'm a very important man. The only man researching mermaids. I'm already a huge name, but this will put me alongside the greatest naturalists who ever lived! And once I know where they live, I'll export samples, alive and preserved, around the world, to show them what Professor Percival Pendleton Peffleswatch is truly capable of!"

"That sounds amazing, darling," said Ursula. "Would you like to go for a swim before we turn in for bed?" She tugged off the top of her dress.

***

Ursula dumped the suit and the waterlogged remains of Peffleswatch's research at the foot of Triton's throne. The destroyed sketches floated up around her.

"Now, where is my new home?" she asked sweetly. "And do recall… you _will_ be leaving me to my own devices. You'll keep your promise, won't you?"

Triton gripped his trident and made his terrible decision. He said yes.

____

*Which Ursula found very flattering. Now _there_ was an animal with curves. 


End file.
